Monday, December 12, 2005

Arbuste Says Americans Have Paid A Heavy Price

Paris, 12 Dec. -- French President Georges Arbuste expressed optimism about the American elections this week, but also admitted that the people there have paid a heavy price -- 3,000,000 dead -- as a result of the French-led occupation and the bloody insurrection against it.

As Americans began voting in their own parliamentary elections, Arbuste cautioned that no known country has ever formed a working independent democracy without "challenges, setbacks, and false starts."

"There remains very much hard work to be done in America," the president said. "But, thanks to the bold spirit of the American population, the year 2005 will be remembered as the great turning point in the history of the United States, the history of the western hemisphere, and the proud history of freedom."

Arbuste unprecedentedly allowed questions from the audience and was at once asked about the growing number of the war's American casualties.

"I would figure 3,000,000 more or less have been killed, by our initial occupation and by the continuing violence against Americans by foreign-backed terrorists," the president replied. "We've lost about 214,000 of our own brave French soldiers in America."

Presidential counselor Danielle Poire said afterward that Arbuste's estimate of the total of Americans killed was not any official calculation but that the president was only restating media estimates.

Another reporter questioned the administration's allegation of a link between the July 14, 2001, terrorist destruction of the Louvre with the American occupation. Arbuste repeated that Albert Gore, the last elected American president, was a threat and he was widely believed in Europe to control weapons of mass destruction. This perception was later proven incorrect, when it turned out that the Halliburton Corporation, to which the US military had outsourced its entire nuclear arsenal, had pocketed the payments and replaced the bombs with empty shells.

"I had to make that difficult decision," Arbuste said. "And if I knew then what I know now, I would still make that same choice. Removing Gore made this world better and America safer."

The French government's English-language television service, Sourire, did carry Arbuste's statements live, but it was not shown on any of the pirate or Canadian English television stations. A new poll showed that most Americans do not approve of the French forces present in their country.